and sides of the loftiest mountains clothed with fertility and verdure; while the lesser hills, and even the valleys, become barren as they approach the sea.

This circumstance is easily accounted for, when we consider that all the lofty peaks are perpetually watered by the passing clouds; many of which being arrested in their progress, and condensed on the brows of the mountains, prove to them a never failing source of fertility, which is totally denied to the lower hills and valleys; rain being a very rare phenomenon on this island. The climate of St. Helena is remarkably salubrious, and conducive to longevity; the temperature of the air being very moderate, considering its situation within the tropics, where the suu is vertical twice a year. From the great inequality of the surface of this island, there is considerable diversity in its climate; the thermometer on the heights frequently sinking below 54°; while in James's valley it is sometimes above 84°.

There are no land and sea breezes here, the island not being. sufficiently large, nor capable of acquiring a temperature that would produce those diurnal winds. The south-east trade, therefore, (excepting at those periods when the sun is vertical,) blows constantly over the island with a steady and uniform force. Storms, rain, thunder, and lightning are consequently very rare occurrences, and never happen but when the sun is passing over the island in his annual course.

The greatest inconvenience which St. Helena is subject to, is drought; which has been known to continue for three years, and prove a great scourge to the island; killing the cattle, destroying the trees, and withering every appearance of vegetation. It is supposed that the paucity of the latter, is a great cause of this deficiency in moisture; consequently they are 'endeavouring to spread vegetation and plant trees, as much as possible, over the arid rocks near the shore.

It is remarked by the inhabitants, that storms, attended with thunder, lightning, and rain, occur about once in ten or twelve years, sometimes doing great mischief; the rocks and crags being loosened and dislodged by the rain, sweep away at those times, the little farms and gardens situated on the declivities.

It is a singular circumstance, that men and animals are here exempt from two of the greatest evils that have ever visited society in the shape of disease: I mean the small-pox and hydrophobia, which have never made their appearance on this island.

With respect to the inhabitants, we had not much time to make many observations; and I shall therefore take the liberty of quoting the words of a gentleman who has lately given a minute and entertaining account of this island.

1805.

Dec.

"The situation of a little colony, embosomed in the recesses 1805. of a rocky island, and separated by an immense ocean from the Dec. troubles and calamities of the surrounding world, we should willingly figure to ourselves as the retreat of happiness; which those who sought for it in retirement might expect to find in the valleys of St. Helena. Here the inhabitants, in the enjoyment of ease and security, have only to attend to the care of their families and gardeus; where they are blessed with some of the best things which this world can give: with long life; exemption from disease; a healthful offspring; and beautiful women. Yet it must be confessed, with whatever sorrow, that the happiness and content which some consider as attainable in a state of retirement from the great and busy world, are only delusive phantoms, feigned by sages and poets, in the fond hope of fiuding somewhere, what hitherto has not been found on earth.

"Of a little society thus shut up in an irksome solitude, and having few opportunities of intercourse with the rest of mankind, it would be pleasant to think that they passed their days agreeably together; and that envy and discord had never found their way to those sequestered retreats, where fancy would gladly paint the abode of simplicity and innocence. But whether from family jealousies, which are apt to arise in such confined situations, or that those little tales of scandal and whispers of detraction, which are so frequently heard in small communities, or from whatever other cause, it is to be regretted that the peace and social intercourse of this settlement have been sometimes disturbed."

An accurate and well informed traveller who visited this place, has remarked," while ships are riding in the roads, and the inhabitants busy in supplying their wants, or eager to entertain their guests, their minds also occupied with foreign events, of which the strangers bring accounts to them, that any dissensions subsisting among individuals in the place are suspended for the time; but that when the shipping season is over, and the settlement void of business, as well as of topics of discussion on distant incidents, intestine divisions sometimes revive; and that it is an object of government to divert their minds from private feuds, by engaging them in military exercises, or even in domestic amusements, or dramatic entertainments.

"To persons coming from the gay and cheerful scenes of the East Indies, where society is enlivened by the utmost ease and freedom of intercourse, and by the most unbounded hospitality, the manner in which the inhabitants of St. Helena pass their time, seems dull and irksome.

"To strangers they appear to associate very little together and except during the shipping season, when they quit their country residences and live in James-town, they pass the remainder

of the year apart from each other at their garden-houses, between which, if their tenants were even more disposed to associate, the intervention of crags, precipices, and chasms, would preclude thé opportunity of easy and frequent intercourse.

"It is customary for the passengers of the homeward-bound India-men, during their stay here, to live at the houses of the inhabitants; and excepting the governor and deputy-governor, and a few others, who entertain strangers with unbounded hospitality, all the inhabitants are ready to accommodate them with board and lodging, the terms of which are generally complained of as being extravagantly high.

"In a situation where the inhabitants during the greatest part of their time are cut off from all intercourse with the world, and left to look upon the naked expanse of the ocean, it will not easily be imagined what lively interest is excited by the appearance of any ship. The arrival of the homeward-bound India-men is the greatest event of the year, it fills the whole settlement with alacrity and joy; they quit their gardens, flock to James-town, open their houses for the accommodation of the passengers, and entertain them with plays, dances, and concerts.

"These gay assemblies are enlivened by the presence of many agreeable and handsome young women, natives of the place, who, amid the general festivity, seem to feel a peculiar interest in what is going forward; probably not without some throbbing expectations of being taken from a scene where they are weary with constantly contemplating the same objects. The appearance of so much loveliness and beauty cast away in a lonesome situation like this, has sometimes raised stronger emotions than those of mere sympathy in the bosoms of their guests: and the native women of St. Helena have adorned domestic life, and graced the politest circles in England and India."

Many humorous stories are told of the locality of ideas, which may be remarked among the inhabitants of St. Helena; of which I shall only mention two instances.

"A lady, one day in conversation with the captain of an India-man, asked him, if London was not very dull when the EastIndia fleet left England?"

This, though it may excite our risibility, was a very natural question from one who had always seen the arrival of this fleet produce the utmost festivity through her native isle.

"An English gentleman and one of the islanders walking one day together, stopped to look at a small spot of ground where the vegetation was very exuberant, when the islander, lifting up his hands, cried out with great fervour, If St. Helena were all as fruitful as this place, it would be the noblest and richest country in the world!”

VOYAGE TO INDIA, &c.]

1805.

Dec.

138

1806. Jan.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES, &c. &c.

"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam :
"His first, best country ever is at home.

"With food, as well the peasant is supplied
"On Idra's cliffs, as Arno's shelvy side;
"And tho' the rocky crested summits frown,
"Those rocks by CUSTOM turn to beds of down.

"Tho' poor the peasant's hut, his feast tho' small,
"He sees his little lot, the lot of all;

"Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,
"To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
"No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
"To make him loath his vegetable meal."

We took leave of this curious island on Christmas-day, and on the 26th of January, 1806, we saw the snow-topt hills of Cornwall; after a voyage, hitherto without a parallel in the annals of navigation. As the Medusa ran from the Ganges to the Lizard in eighty-four days, two of which were spent at anchor in St. Helena roads; consequently she was only eightytwo days under sail, in which time she traversed the immense space of thirteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-one miles. Sir John Gore, then, may justly claim the merit of having made the most rapid passage, that has ever yet been performed between Bengal and England;-while the Medusa's track will exhibit to the philosopher and to the world, a striking instance of that high degree of perfection which British men of war have attained in every respect-not only constant victors in the day of battle, but as couriers, almost outsripping the winds themselves!

CONCLUSION.

By this time I have little doubt but that the reader is as tired of the voyage, and rejoiced at the sight of Old England, as I am. Having now, therefore, led him a round of more than thirty thousand miles, and shewn. him every thing which I thought worthy of notice on the road, without once subjecting him to a gule of wind, a scorching sun, or a noxious atmosphere; I trust it will not be thought too presuming, if, as a fellow-traveller, I claim his indulgence to the many literary errors which I fear are but too profusely scattered through the preceding pages. They were written under the impulse of the moment, without study; committed to the press without correction; and are now, with the utmost diffidence, thrown on the mercy of the indulgent reader, "with all their imperfections on their heads!" 72 7

"To err, is human-to forgive, divine!"

END OF VOYAGE TO INDIA, &c.